Done already
By
STOP it already, you people who think you can do better than Miss Philippines Maxine Medina during the Q and A portion of the Miss U pageant. As she so charmingly dismissed her critics and detractors – and reporters who needed to entrap her into another potential boo-boo – “It’s done already.”
First of all, it was a beauty contest, not a spelling bee or an IQ quiz or an elocution contest. Secondly, as Maria quipped while pounding my muscles and watching the news, “Why don’t you all-knowing folks take her place and show what you’ve got?” (She said it in the vernacular, which sounded more crunchy to my ears.)
While she was bashed by her countrymen, Maxine, who comes from a line of beautiful women – specifically her mother and a kid sister -- earned rave reviews from a former Miss Universe. India’s Sushmita Sen was lavish in her praises for Maxine’s looks and demeanor, and predicted she’ll be another Pia Wurtzbach.
It’s not only Maxine who is guilty of “terminological inexactitude” (Winston Churchill). President Duterte’s spokesperson has invented an adjective out of a verb. Talking to reporters about Digong following processes and procedures, he said, “He is very allowing, right?” US President Trump’s spokesperson created a phrase, “alternative facts,” which was quickly picked up by yet another spokesperson, former President Aquino’s, in attacking the enemies of his ex-boss on the case of the SAF 44.
If Maxine had allowed a spokesperson or an interpreter to do the speaking for her, would she have won the crown? She would most likely have shrugged her pretty shoulders and smiled disarmingly, “It’s done already.”
Miss U 1969 Gloria Diaz put it beautifully, “The one who wins the crown is not the most beautiful, not the smartest, she’s just the luckiest.”
Indeed, a million little and big details meet in a moment, in one girl, and the winner is proclaimed. In a confluence of factors, at one dazzling point, the universe stops and there she is. Miss France had never landed in any of the lists of favorite contenders, yet the judges found her irresistible, the one “complete woman” in the room (quoting Sushmita).